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1Every ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' game is almost contractually obliged to have a Guide Dang It moment in it somewhere.
2----
3[[foldercontrol]]
4[[folder:Throughout the franchise in general]]
5* Several ''Zelda'' games, when you fight Ganon (or some manifestation of him), require you to defeat him with a battle tactic known as the "Dead Man's Volley" -- essentially, [[TennisBoss playing tennis]] on his projectiles with your sword. The problem is that in almost every ''Zelda'' game, your sword cannot otherwise reflect projectiles, and you're never informed that you can do this against Ganon. Later games seem to be counting on the player to [[MythologyGag remember this maneuver from a previous game]]. Sometimes your ExpositionFairy may teach you how to do it, but not all the time.
6* Heart pieces are more often than not in places where you either don't need to go, have already been to, or just simply in random areas you wouldn't even think to look. Only a precious few can be found with a little exploration; without a guide, you're looking at spending ungodly amounts of time searching every corner of the game for these things. It's telling that later games in the series, like ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTwilightPrincess Twilight Princess]]'', include an in-universe HintSystem to help players track down the Pieces.
7[[/folder]]
8[[folder:''The Legend of Zelda'']]
9* ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaI'' was actually designed with this in mind; creator Creator/ShigeruMiyamoto wanted players to have to collaborate with their friends to figure out how to beat the game. As such, its only hints are obtuse, brief, and [[GoodBadTranslation memetically mistranslated]], leaving some NPC hints undecipherable for ''decades''. It also likes to hide things like rupees, heart containers, and entire shops behind bomb squares and burned trees, but unlike later ''Zelda'' games, there is no visible indication that you can bomb or burn any particular square, requiring a heck of a lot of TrialAndErrorGameplay. (And you can only carry a limited number of bombs, and the candle can only be used once per screen unless you have the red candle.) More specifically:
10** Level 5 requires you to go through a looping screen (the original version of the TheLostWoods) several times. There is an in-game PlayerNudge, with the old woman by the waterfall telling you to "[-GO UP, UP THE MOUNTAIN AHEAD-]" -- except she only tells you that if you pay her the ''middle'' amount, which is a GuideDangIt in itself, as most players, by that point, would have been been conditioned to pay [=NPCs=] the maximum amount.
11** Level 7 can only be accessed by using the whistle, which everywhere else in the game warps you around. The only hint there is an old man in another dungeon reminding you that "[-THERE ARE SECRETS WHERE FAIRIES DON'T LIVE-]", which tells you where to go but not that you should use the whistle there. And inside the dungeon, you have to go to the room in the upper-right corner, kill all the Wallmasters, and move a block to open a secret passageway, which you need to decipher from "[-THERE'S A SECRET IN THE TIP OF THE NOSE.-]"
12** Several dungeons have an angry Goriya blocking your path, saying nothing but "[-GRUMBLE, GRUMBLE.-]" Players were apparently supposed to realize that you were supposed to feed him, which would have been a lot more transparent if he'd said something like "[-I'M HUNGRY-]". This is one case where the English puzzle is ''easier'' than the Japanese one, because an English-speaking player could connect the dots and assume this was meant to be his ''stomach'' grumbling, whereas the Japanese version specifically uses onomatopoeia for angry muttering, providing no clue to what he wants.
13** If you touch a Bubble, you cannot use your sword for a few seconds. But if you touch a Red Bubble, you can't use your sword until you either use a potion, go to a fairy spring, or touch a Blue Bubble -- the last of which was totally unintuitive, as the game had been teaching you not to touch Bubbles of any color.
14** Beating the game unlocks the [[NewGamePlus second quest]], which changes everything up on you -- items get moved around, and every level's entrance is hidden (except Levels 1 and 5). It also throws fake walls at you. You'd be stuck in a dungeon, having bombed every wall trying to find a way out, until you realize that some walls just let you walk right through them if you hold against them for a second or two.
15** After bringing Ganon down, the Silver Arrows are needed to finish him off or he'll just recover and you take it from the top! It'd be nice to have that even slightly hinted at anywhere... if you find the Silver Arrows before stumbling into Ganon's lair, any player would figure "I should probably use the item I just got against the boss" but it's easy to accidentally find Ganon's lair first and not know why he just won't die.
16** It should be noted that a ''lot'' of this is due to mistranslated/altered/removed clues. Your average Japanese player who finds this game hard will blame the enemies, not wandering for ages with no idea what to do next.
17[[/folder]]
18[[folder: ''Zelda II: The Adventure of Link'']]
19* ''VideoGame/ZeldaIITheAdventureOfLink'' is just as bad, due to a combination of having no access to a map and the hints being cryptic if not outright vague:
20** The bridge man in the town of Saria caused a lot of grief after a single dungeon. All you are told is that "Only townspeople may cross". But there's no way to become a townsperson, or to convince any of the other townspeople to come with you. You had to randomly wander into the forest to the north to find a man named Bagu, whose house is hidden, so you have to comb all of those trees to find it. The only hint that he's up there is a monster in one house, whom you have to talk to several times to wake up (itself a GuideDangIt) and who tells you to seek his "master" in the woods. And without talking to Bagu, you can't get the hammer, which you'll also need to reach the next dungeon.
21** Thunderbird, the second-to-last boss, is invincible unless you use a certain spell. But ''which'' spell? Turns out you have to use the "Thunder" spell, which wouldn't make sense against an [[ShockAndAwe electrical boss]]. And it also costs 50% of your magic bar, so no one ever used it. People thought it might be the mysterious [[ShapedLikeItself "Spell" spell]], which doesn't have much use elsewhere in the game.
22** Finding the Hidden Town of Kasuto requires you to use the hammer, an item otherwise used to break rocks, to knock down tiles of ''forest'' in the overworld. Beneath one of those tiles is a town tile. There is no indication that this is even ''possible'', especially as all other places hidden in the woods can be found just by walking into them. The only hint you get is "[-THE TOWN IS DEAD LOOK EAST IN WOODS-]".
23[[/folder]]
24
25[[folder: ''A Link to the Past'']]
26* Several puzzles in the Dark World have rather obscure solutions, where without a guide to help you your only recourse is to Try Everything. For example, several rooms in Ice Palace have their doors opened by pulling on the tongues of statues — these statues are unique to this dungeon but otherwise are prolific inside it and only a couple of them can have their tongues pulled. There's also a room in the Palace of Darkness where you progress by shooting a statue with an arrow — the statue is colored differently so it's obvious you're supposed to do something with it, but it isn't immediately clear.
27* Turtle Rock holds rails where, when you use the Cane of Somaria on them, the cane will create a platform you can ride on. This is the only time the cane is used in this manner and nothing hints to this, not even the cane itself which otherwise has an entirely different usage.
28[[/folder]]
29[[folder: '' Link's Awakening'']]
30* Some doors only open if you throw a pot at them. Aside from this not being very intuitive in the first place, this logic doesn't work in any other ''Zelda'' game, leading veteran players to assume they missed a switch or something. The Switch remake adds a pot symbol to doors of these type to make the solution more obvious (although this does somewhat obscure the fact that the Face Shrine's elephant statues work just as well).
31* There is a chest in the sixth dungeon that must be opened in the same manner. Unlike the doors, this is only used once. The DX version adds an Owl Statue that bluntly gives away the solution.
32* Accessing the Color Dungeon in DX. Sure, the game tells you where to push the stones, but it gives the instructions in an ambiguous way. The game gives you "3↑ 4→ 5↑ [line break] 2→ 1↓". This three-then-two pattern matches the arrangement of the gravestones, and you're supposed to mentally superimpose the two, then push the graves in the order of the numbers. Those who don't notice the similar pattern and read straight across (third grave up, fourth grave right, etc.) will be stuck.
33* The fifth grave will refuse to budge if you have an NPC with you, but doesn't specify this in its dialogue, only calling you a "coward".
34* At one point in Turtle Rock, you have to shoot a statue with an arrow, which you never have to do at any other point in the game. Like the chest in Face Shrine, a hint telling you the solution was added in the DX version.
35* A puzzle in the second dungeon requires you to kill three enemies in a specific order to reveal a key required to progress. There is a hint earlier in the level which refers to the enemies by name, but the enemies' names are nowhere in the game or the manual. The only way you'd know them is from the manual of a previous ''Zelda'' game. The first enemy to kill being described as "imprisoned" in the hint helps narrow it down a little, and the Switch remake is more specific about the last enemy.
36[[/folder]]
37[[folder: ''Ocarina Of Time'']]
38* The 100 Gold Skulltullas are remarkably difficult to find. Not only are they often hidden in odd places, but some only appear at certain times of day or in a single time period. Others require you to roll into a tree to dislodge them, which is mentioned in the manual but otherwise unintuitive, as these trees are small and barren and obviously aren't hiding a Skulltulla. The father of the cursed family will mention that some Skulltullas only appear at night or inside soil patches, but he will no longer give this hint once all of this children are freed, so if you never talk to him between getting your tenth and fiftieth token, you're on your own.
39* The dungeons, particularly [[ThatOneLevel the Water Temple]], sometimes have keys that aren't supposed to be used on the first locked door you encounter, essentially leaving you one key short, and the replacement key is usually very difficult to find without a guide.
40* In the Forest Temple, you need to figure out that you can only defeat the Poe Sisters by shooting an arrow at their paintings.
41* The game never tells you that you can shoot an arrow through flame to melt ice, or that you can use blue flame to melt red rocks.
42* Speaking of the well, you enter by walking through the ''first'' false wall in the entire game after no hints that those are even a thing.
43* The ''Master Quest'' version of the Well requires you to bomb something you've never bombed before, that matches the rest of the scenery in the dungeon, and has no indication that it can be destroyed, in order to acquire the Lens of Truth. Not even the compass tells you that the room contains anything.
44* You can press the B button to skip to the end of some NPC text, including the repeatable sections of that damn owl, [[WallOfText Kaepora]] [[ShallIRepeatThat Gaebora]]. It would have been a considerable benefit if the game actually tells you this, but it never does.
45* The Goron's Tunic has hidden abilities that actually make it ''much'' more useful than you would ever imagine. It actually protects you against all floor hazards as well, providing complete immunity to spike floors and enhancing your resistance to hazardous liquid like that found in the Shadow Temple. Not that the game bothers to tell you any of this, of course.[[note]]It's probably due to the tunic's protection [[GoodBadBugs not being coded to differentiate between floor damage caused by fire and floor damage from other hazards]].[[/note]]
46[[/folder]]
47[[folder: ''Majora's Mask'']]
48* Like in most Zelda games, you can give people items by assigning the item to a button, and then pressing the button while standing in front of someone. You can alternatively give items to people by assigning the item to a button, and then pressing the button while talking to them, which the game does tell you. What the game ''doesn't'' tell you is that you can't do the former with ''consumable'' items specifically. Other Zelda games have you do the former specifically, even with consumables, so this difference [[DamnYouMuscleMemory can throw players off]].
49* Certain masks are obtained by going to a completely random spot at an arbitrarily fixed time, or by using an item or mask in a completely irrelevant location. The 3DS version includes an extensive hint system to counteract this. Notably, the Anju and Kafei quest has many important steps that require knowing what has to be done and when.
50* Getting the two Pieces of Heart from Granny is a particularly frustrating challenge. First, you have to have the All-Night Mask, which only appears in the Curiosity Shop on the third night of the game if you rescued the Old Lady from Sakon on the first night--and to make matters worse, the Shop only opens at 10:00 PM, or the tail end of the three-day cycle. Then you have to listen to Granny's stories at the Stock Pot Inn while wearing the All-Night Mask, which otherwise has no use in the game. At the end of each tale, she'll ask you a question about the story you chose to hear, and if you pick the right answer, she'll give you the Heart Piece. The first one makes sense... but in an incredible bit of counter-intuitiveness, you have to answer ''wrong'' to get the prize for the second story. And there's no indication that Granny even has two Pieces of Heart to begin with!
51* In the 3DS remake, the Twinmold fight can be an exercise in frustration if you don't know how its second phase is programmed. The red worm must be punched a certain number of times for it to be stunned, however the counter is reset when it burrows, meaning all those hits must connect within a single cycle of its attacks. When Twinmold falls to the ground, it's left vulnerable, yet normal attacks are useless against it. To inflict damage, you have to grab the monster's tail, which is done by pressing the '''A''' button while NOT L-targetting. Additionally, rotating the circle pad while Link spins Twinmold deals extra damage, which is ''never'' hinted in-game.
52[[/folder]]
53[[folder: ''Oracle Games'']]
54* You have 64 Rings to collect, and no idea how to find any of them. The game does not tell you that Rings have five different classes, and that events that give you random rings only give you rings from certain specific classes. The Advance Time Ring and Advance Nature Ring can only be found if you play on a Game Boy Advance; otherwise, the shop that sells them is inaccessible. And the Red Ring in ''Oracle of Seasons'' requires you to slay four different "Golden" monsters, which only show up during specific seasons, in four completely different locations, with no hints as to where they are -- and to even get to that point, you have to talk to an NPC in a separate unintuitive place that the game never hints at.
55* In ''Oracle of Ages'', the seeds that grow into vines generally act like bottles: you can pick them up but can't put them down safely, so to move them to a particular place, you have to push them. But there's one key difference: the Switch Hook breaks bottles but leaves seeds intact. You won't get into the sixth dungeon without figuring this out.
56* In ''Oracle of Seasons'', one of the season spirits tells you midway through the game that autumn causes pits to fill with fallen leaves. This tidbit isn't necessary until the path to one of the last dungeons in the game, and it's easy to have forgotten it in the meantime since most of its optional uses are in areas where the default season is autumn -- meaning the pits in those areas will already be filled with leaves, so the player won't realize the pits are there unless they happen to stand in the right spots for more than a few seconds.
57* Also from ''Seasons'', you're required to use the Rod of Seasons to knock Din's CrystalPrison away when Onox starts using it as a shield. The only hint that this is possible is that you can use the rod to knock certain enemies around elsewhere in the game, but it's optional, impractical, and not something any player is likely to think of.
58* The Hero's Cave contains a room with a puzzle where you turn blue floor tiles into red ones, like in some other dungeons in the game. But this time, you're always left with at least one blue tile left. The solution, which is never hinted at, is to use the Cane of Somaria to create a block on the tile, which counts as turning it red.
59* The final room of [[BrutalBonusLevel Hero's Cave]] in a linked ''Oracle of Seasons'' game has eight randomly (so it seems) located treasure chests surrounded by puddles of water and different types of ground. In order to proceed, Link must open the chests in a specific order. It turns out that the topography of the room resembles the world map and the chests' locations correspond to the overworld locations of the main dungeons, and have to be opened in the same order Link visited the dungeons in. To make matters worse, not only is the eighth dungeon not located in the overworld but in the [[DualWorldGameplay underground land of Subrosia]] (which is smaller than the overworld), you cannot even look at the world map, because Hero's Cave is technically a dungeon and [[FakeDifficulty shows you the dungeon map instead]].
60[[/folder]]
61[[folder: ''The Wind Waker'']]
62* Near the end of Dragon Roost Cavern, you're required to attack a Magtail and then use the ball it curls into to depress a switch in order to obtain the dungeon's big key. But this puzzle is only the second time players will have encountered a Magtail, and the first encounter involves fighting one on a tiny platform that you can only kill using a parry attack -- which kills it instantly and doesn't grant you any insight as to what else it can be used for.
63* At one point in the Earth Temple, you’re required to use fire arrows to burn away a set of curtains in order to allow in a beam of light with which a puzzle can be solved. The only way a player would know this is if they happened to have played ''Majora’s Mask'' beforehand, since this type of puzzle originated there.
64* In the HD remaster, the Tingle Statues sidequest requires you to bomb a specific point in each of the five major dungeons to cause a treasure chest to appear. Not only is there no hint that this is possible, not only is there no hint of ''where'' you're supposed to bomb (the Compass doesn't even hint that these chests exist), but there's no hint that the ''sidequest'' even exists (unless you played the original and used the Tingle Tuner). Your reward for clearing it is Knuckle appearing on Tingle Island, which is necessary for the Nintendo Gallery (unlike in the original). The real purpose of the quest remaining in the game appears to be to reward people who played the original and know where to go and what to do.
65* One Piece of Heart is found by destroying a very specific Cannon Boat that appears in one specific section of the Great Sea. One of the Fishmen does inform you of the ability to salvage treasure from these sunken boats, but that's in a completely different sector than the one with the Piece of Heart, and the majority of Cannon Boats don't leave sunken treasure behind anyway, so it's not something players are likely to make a habit of.
66* The Goron Trading Quest. This sidequest involves you trading items to the Gorons on Mother and Child Isles, Greatfish Isle, and Bomb Island. This trading sequence will get you the Magic Armor and a Piece Of Heart. Figuring out ''what'' the Gorons will give you is hard, as you're not sure what you'll get until they tell you what it is without looking at a guide or walkthrough.
67* The boss of the first dungeon, Gohma, is fought and defeated before you’re able to obtain the Deluxe Pictobox. Despite this, it is possible to obtain Gohma’s Nintendo Gallery figurine without starting the Second Quest; you can capture her pictograph when you fight her again at Ganon’s Tower. What trips many players up about this is that Carlov, the figurine carver, says he will only accept pictographs taken in full color, while the boss rematches in Ganon's Tower are all fought in greyscale. This turns out not to matter — all you really need is a picture taken by a Deluxe Pictobox, even if the subject itself is monochrome — but there’s no way of realizing this short of trying to submit the greyscale Gohma’s pictograph yourself.
68* The Darknut’s figurines can also be difficult to obtain without consulting a guide, since the gallery has space for three of them but doesn’t specify which Darknuts qualify as subjects for each one. It actually has to do with their equipment and attire — the first figurine is of a Darknut with only a sword, the second one has a sword and shield, and the third is wearing a cape. Making things more complicated is that caped Darknuts are of a limited quantity, and the only ones that respawn are hidden inside the Phantom Ganon maze — which, once you’ve defeated Phantom Ganon, can only be navigated via guesswork, memory, or consulting a guide.
69[[/folder]]
70[[folder: ''The Minish Cap'']]
71* At one point, you have to scoop up water with a bottle and pour it on a seed to make it grow. The game gives you no indication that this is possible.
72* Immediately after that, you have to get to the green water spring by blowing up part of a wall which does not look bombable -- or indeed any different from any other part of the wall.
73* At another point, you have to use water in a bottle to put out fireplaces in Hyrule Town so you can go through them while Minish-sized. Your only hint that this is possible is the Minish passageways that can be seen going into the chimneys.
74* Some of the Kinstone fusions are unintuitive; some switch to other people over the course of the game, some people will only fuse by random chance, some people have two different fusions (one of which is often a shared one), and some require backtracking to areas that you have no story reason to go to. Reaching a certain point in the game without doing a specific fusion makes the Light Arrows [[PermanentlyMissableContent unobtainable]], a rare situation in ''Zelda'' games (especially for one of Link's most iconic items), and if you don't do this there aren't any obvious clues that you missed anything.
75* [[FinalBoss Vaati]]'s last phase requires you to use the Cane of Pacci to flip his arms over and then enter them. There is no indication that you need to do either of those things.
76[[/folder]]
77[[folder: ''Freshly Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland'']]
78* ''VideoGame/FreshlyPickedTinglesRosyRupeeland'' has the eponymous character paying money to people. If you don't offer them enough, they'll tell you to get lost. Offer them too much, and you'll have wasted a bunch of money. There's no indication of what the correct price is. And if you're trying to sell something and ask for too much, the buyer might never come back.
79[[/folder]]
80[[folder: ''Phantom Hourglass'']]
81* The secret to getting that mark in the Temple of the Ocean King onto your sea chart requires you to physically close your DS to transfer the stamp from one screen to the other. It's a clever bit of FridgeBrilliance (which you might even accidentally stumble upon), but it makes no sense if you're playing on a [[UsefulNotes/Nintendo3DS Nintendo 2DS]] that you can't close, or using the UsefulNotes/VirtualConsole on the UsefulNotes/WiiU, in which case you have to go to the Home Menu or Virtual Console Menu and back.
82* At one or two points, the game requires you to speak into the DS’s microphone in order for Link to call out and get someone’s attention. This is necessary to advance both times it comes up, and yet the only hint you’re given is Ciela telling ''Link'' to call out, with no indication that she’s addressing the player directly. Anyone who doesn’t catch on that the system has a tiny microphone in between the two screens is out of luck until they figure it out.
83[[/folder]]
84[[folder: ''Spirit Tracks'']]
85* One of the final {{sidequest}}s requires Dark Ore with no indication of where to get it, not even from all those Gorons. You have to do another seemingly unrelated sidequest first in order to discover it, but that one won't trigger until later in the main quest.
86* Near the end of the Tower of Spirits, there's a bizarre and non-optional stumbling block. A sign hidden in a dark area, which you can only read while Zelda is inhabiting a flame-sworded phantom, gives you a cryptic clue: "Only those with no special powers know the secret." Controlling one of the regular phantoms in the room won't help. The solution is to make Zelda talk to one of them, making them spill the beans about a weak spot in the wall (''i.e.'' something you can bomb open). All other phantoms say nothing of substance, and it was already established that Zelda only talks to phantoms to distract them while Link sneaks by. It's probably easier to talk to one by accident while stumbling around in the dark than to actually solve the puzzle. As for the weak spot itself? The phantom's line implies that you have to place the bomb in the corner, but it has to be some pixels away from that in order to hit the passage.
87[[/folder]]
88[[folder: ''A Link Between Worlds'']]
89* Hidden throughout the various dungeons are large chests containing optional upgrades. Most of these range from being fairly easy to get to somewhat challenging. Then theres the chest in the Dark Palace, wich is pretty much impossible to get to without a guide, or sheer dumb luck. On one side of the room theres a switch that is normally used to raise and lower a platform, but it also causes a wall on the otherside to revolve. In order to get the chest Link has to merge with the wall before it revolves. This sounds simple enough, but the switch and the wall are far enough apart that they can't be seen on screen at the same time, and since the switch already has a mundane function you are unlikely to think much of it. The only way to know the wall revolves is to place a bomb next to the switch and then run across the room before it explodes, theres no reason to do this unless you've already checked a guide. Granted, the chest and the small room that its in can be seen on the map, but with no clear hints that'll just leave you scratching your head.
90[[/folder]]
91[[folder: ''Hyrule Warriors'']]
92* Characters can immediately break into a run by holding down the dodge button. All materials and weapons in the field are automatically collected at the end of a mission. Neither of these things are ever mentioned in-game, although the former is briefly mentioned in the manual. Also for the former, it's averted in Legends, where it's mentioned in a loading screen tip.
93* Some of the Hard Mode Skulltula clues can be misleading, as well. The clue for the final stage says you have to defeat ??? (Ganondorf) before ??? (The Castle Keep) is recaptured. This may lead you to believe that you have to capture the Castle Keep and defeat Ganondorf before his forces reclaim it, but you actually have to defeat Ganondorf while the Castle Keep is still in his possession, then capture it.
94* There isn't an easy legend for which 8-bit icon is whose in Adventure mode, especially the small heads that show who a reward belongs too. The three Links in particular look almost identical (Link's ears are long and pointed upwards, Young Link's are short and horizontal, Toon Link has a brighter color palette). This is particularly frustrating when a section of the first map is blocked off by "Link" being required and the game telling you he's not unlocked. You actually need Toon Link, who isn't even unlocked via that map. Good luck figuring that out if you're trying to do the adventures in order.
95* Each character has an specific elemental weakness (which has ''nothing'' to do with the elemental damage that a certain weapon deals), but the game never tells you ''which'' element a character is weak to. While some of them are easy to figure out (every version of Link and Zelda is weak to darkness while almost every single villain plus both versions of Midna are weak to light) some others are rather cryptic (for example Lana being weak to lightning or Agitha being weak to fire) and can only be found by trial-and-error.
96[[/folder]]
97[[folder: ''Breath of the Wild'']]
98* There are 900 Korok seeds, and many of them found only by lifting random rocks, jumping in random circles of lilypads, and jumping into random clumps of leaves. The game itself is bigger than any other ''Zelda'' game, so good luck searching even if you know what to do when you get there.
99* The guy who expands your inventory isn't tracked or even associated to a quest. It's very easy to miss him entirely or to lose track of him once he moves with no solution other than to look up his location online.
100* In-game hints encourage you to look for wild horses with lots of Stamina, indicated by the spur icons that appear while running. This is also the only horse stat that you can easily determine without taking it to a stable. The catch is, since Stamina replenishes at the same rate regardless of the horse, it's only really useful for sprinting away from enemies. What the game ''doesn't'' mention is that the highest Stamina horses ''can't'' have maximum Speed, that maximum Speed horses can only be found in certain locations, and that you can only learn a horse's Speed by catching it and taking it to a stable (none of which are near where you can find such horses).
101* There are 120 shrines scattered throughout the world which also act as fast-travel points. Have fun trying to find every single one without looking it up.
102* The sidequest "The Eighth Heroine," from Gerudo Town, is an exercise in frustration. The questgiver wants a picture of a legendary statue that is hidden somewhere in the wilderness, and mentions that someone in the city knows a lot about ancient Gerudo legends. Even the mission progress screen tells you to seek out that person for information, and there's an NPC in Gerudo Town who specifically mentions that she's researching the story of the Seven Heroines. But she's not the person to talk to--in fact, no one is. You're supposed to give fruit to Patricia, Lady Riju's psychic Sand Seal, who will in turn offer random prophecies; there's a slim chance that one prophecy will be where you can find the statue. There is ''nothing'' in the game that indicates that Patricia's visions will help you solve the quest, that Patricia has PsychicPowers to begin with, or even that you're able to talk to Patricia at all. It's far more likely for players to simply go out looking for the statue and find it accidentally than do it the "right" way.
103* In the Champion's Ballad, there is a trial in which you are told to shoot four targets at the Flight Range. What it does not tell you is that you have to shoot them all without once exiting the slow motion of firing arrows in midair. You can figure it out if you pay close attention to targets you've already shot, but that's still quite far from telling you upfront.
104[[/folder]]
105
106[[folder: ''Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity'']]
107* ''VideoGame/HyruleWarriorsAgeOfCalamity:'' Most of the "memory quests" introduced in the extra story missions are fairly intuitive... but some are the complete opposite.
108** Both "To Zelda's Side" and "Liberate the Ancient Lab" have the same memory quest, which requires the player to find some rare fruit -- three hydromelons in the former, four wildberries in the latter. But these fruits are all placed in specific crates, which look absolutely identical to the normal crates and are scattered in obscure places across the level. Short of finding an online guide, a player's only recourse is to literally run back and forth across the entire map and hope to stumble upon them by accident.
109** "Battle for Kakariko Village" has a memory quest that requires Daruk to conquer four outposts with Vah Rudania, which he only does after defeating an elite monster when it appears atop the Divine Beast. However, if the player completes the level's quests as fast as they appear, then the level will end before Daruk has had a chance to blast four outposts. [[spoiler:The only way to complete this quest requires the player to leave the three Yiga Blademasters alive until they have summoned enough elite monsters to trigger Daruk's activation of Vah Rudania four times, which is hardly a player's first thought, especially if they're going for the primary memory quest of the level, which requires beating all the designated targets without an elite monster ever entering Kakariko Village.]]
110** "The Yiga Clan's Retreat" may have the most counterintuitive quest of the game. The secret memory quest requires the player to complete the level with the three Yiga followers -- one Captain, two Blademasters -- alive. However, about a third of the way into the level, one Blademaster performs a HeroicSacrifice, locking himself behind an impenetrable gate and preparing to hold the line against some Silver Moblins. [[spoiler:To complete the quest, the player has to advance until they are attacked by some of Astor's Hollows; if they double-back, they can then convince the Blademaster to open the gate and be rescued -- and if the player kills the Hollows that initially attack them, then the game automatically kills the Blademaster. There is no hint that this can be done and no reason for a player to think to try it.]] [[spoiler: For icing on the cake, you ''have'' to complete this specific memory quest to unlock Sooga as a playable character.]]
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113[[folder:''Tears of the Kingdom'']]
114* If you didn't learn from the previous game, this game won't get you any further to figuring out that Rock Octoroks can suck in and improve your weapons (sans amiibo ones). Even if you did learn from ''Breath'', there's still no hint that this time around, they can fully restore durability ''and'' give modifiers to any weapon.
115* A few Zonai devices have properties that are not immediately obvious:
116** Hover blocks for example negate up-down momentum (i.e., an activated hover block in water won't be pushed up by a buoyant object trying to surface) but counterintuitively do not resist lateral momentum (i.e., one pushed by a paddle or an impact keeps going).
117** The Portable Pot appears at first to just be a tool to make it convenient to cook in a pinch. However, the pot can move independently of its base, allowing Link to use it as a suspension mechanism for machines to improve their maneuverability.
118* All of the Lightroots in the Depths directly correspond to Shrines on the surface (the exception are shrines in the sky islands, which do not have a counterpart in the Depths), and their names are even mirrors of each other. The only hint you get for the former is a brief remark in one of the research notes during the quest to unlock the camera feature.
119* Link's official signature look for this game pairs the Champion's Leathers armor with the Hylian Hood, worn down off his head. The player is never told how to achieve this latter aspect in-game, since the Hylian Hood is still modeled up on the head like it was before. You have to talk to fashion guru Cece after the Hateno election quests are complete while wearing the hood, and [[YouHaveResearchedBreathing she'll offer to take it down for you]], converting the model to the "hood-down" version until you talk to her again to reverse it.
120* This game's version of the Champion's Tunic, the Champion's Leathers, has no ability to see the exact health enemies have. What it ''does'' have, which the game doesn't hint to at all in its description, is being able to fire the Master Sword's beams regardless of how much health Link has. This power is also present on the Tunic of Memories.
121* The way pristine weapons are offered by ghost soldiers in the Depths is very unintuitive. When it comes to normal decayed weapons, they reliably respawn every Blood Moon so that the player can return to them then. While pristine weapons can respawn every Blood Moon, they spawn from a pool of weapons unique to every ghost, each weapon in a pool is only unlocked when a decayed version is broken first, and they can ''only'' respawn if the weapon is removed from their hands somehow (ignoring the weapon will simply leave it there until the player decides to pick it up). Also, most of these ghosts have an "initial" spawn of [[StarterEquipment Traveler's Weapons]], which as stated will remain in their hands until they are removed. Nothing in the game hints about how any of this works, so in effect, most players without a guide will ignore these weak spawns and not bother to return to their spots even if they pick them up.
122* Much like the previous game, trying to find all 1,000 Korok Seeds for completion's sake is an exercise in frustration without an external guide, even with the in-game Korok Mask. Thankfully, if all the player is interested in is maxing out Link's weapon, bow, and shield inventories, less than half of the total number of seeds is needed (421 seeds in total, and 20 less than in ''Breath of the Wild'').
123* If you attempted to use Windcleavers in the previous game, you might think that the RazorWind that Eightfold Longblades throw out aren't anything special. What the game doesn't tell you is that these {{Razor Wind}}s have been massively [[BalanceBuff buffed]]: not only do they now share the same damage as the weapon itself, but they can be further enhanced with elemental effects such as fire, ice, and lightning! Most amusing of all, the RazorWind can even have the Muddle Bud's confusion effect applied to it, giving it a reliable way to confuse groups of monsters.
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